


Postcards

by iondeluge



Series: Amber's Adventures [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-22 11:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22515277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iondeluge/pseuds/iondeluge
Summary: At age eleven, Amber follows in her mother's footsteps and leaves behind her hometown of Postwick to explore the rest of the world - and maybe learn some things, while she's at it.
Series: Amber's Adventures [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660471
Kudos: 1





	Postcards

**Author's Note:**

> This is partially just writing practice, but it also serves as a prequel to the story I've written for Sword and Shield (which will also be posted to this account, once more of it is written out and not just in outline-form, for the same archival purposes as this one). I mostly wanted to archive it somewhere outside my own hard drive, and AO3 is good for that sort of thing. I'll probably keep story notes in these for myself, too, so I can remember the details I didn't necessarily include.
> 
> This particular chapter of this particular story is an experiment with writing style, so it might seem a little disjointed or incoherent. Hopefully I can sort it out with practice and possibly a little more editing. I was aiming for a whimsical storybook vibe, but I don't think I captured it the way I intended. That's fine, though, this is practice for a reason.

It is often said that wanderers, when they have tired of wandering, no longer know what to do with themselves. Some may become wise old hermits while others try their best to settle into old routines, often with varying levels of success. They all have their own scars and their own stories to tell, for not even the smallest journey is ever uneventful. Some wanderers return to the homes they once knew, and others still make new ones in new places.

The most common ailment that afflicts wanderers is loneliness. A great many would like to think themselves immune to this particular ailment, but there is a difference of the sharp and pointed sort between a preference for solitude and deciding to leave behind all that you know. Besides loneliness, other common ailments of wanderers include stubbornness, hubris and wounded pride.

This is the story of a girl who experienced all of these things, among others. Her name is Amber Owen.

Our tale begins with Amber, who resides in a sleepy town called Postwick, on the eve of her mother's departure. You see, Amber's mother was a wanderer at heart, and while she had spent the first nine years of Amber's life (and several more before that) here in the sleepy town of Postwick she could not bring herself to stay any longer - not for her husband, or her friends, or even her beloved daughter. She promised letters and postcards and presents, but those things mattered little to Amber, who wanted nothing more than for her mother to stay.

That night, Amber snuck out her window - something she was practiced at, for the tree that grew beside it was clearly placed there for mischievous young girls to sneak about - and walked a short distance up the lonely dirt road, to the only other house anywhere nearby. This house was as much a home to her as her own had ever been, and so it was with practiced ease that she climbed her second tree of the night, reaching over to tap on the window (which proved something of a challenge, because this tree wasn’t quite as close to the window as the one that grew next to her own room), which opened just a moment later and revealed the face of Amber's closest friend. Hop helped her inside without question, and didn’t say a word as she settled on the floor.

"Mum left," she’d said quietly. She had come here for a reason - Hop would likely understand; his brother often left for months at a time, though he always came back and her mother had made no promise of any such thing. And he did understand, she supposed, because he never said he was sorry or tried anything else to reassure her beyond simply letting her lean on his shoulder.

When she was no longer crying they would settle into an oft-repeated sleepover routine, and in the morning - after breakfast - Amber would return home. But this time she would return home with a new understanding of her hometown, and it wasn't one she particularly liked.

You see, Amber was raised by a wanderer, and so she was raised on stories - tales of grand adventures, for the most part. There were a handful of rules to stories, as she understood them (though she also understood that rules were made to be broken): they had a beginning, a middle, and an end. They tended to start in unremarkable places, in her experience - places like a sleepy town called Postwick.

Her realization was as follows: Postwick was the sort of sleepy, unremarkable town where stories started. It was not the sort of place where stories ended, or even one where they unfolded. It was simply unremarkable. Now, Amber did not like the idea of her hometown being considered unremarkable any more than she liked the idea of being considered unremarkable herself, and so she set about rectifying this issue in her own way: a hero's home is never unremarkable, and so a hero she would become. It wasn’t uncommon for children her age, or perhaps a few years older, to go on journeys - indeed, it was a rite of passage of sorts.

Unfortunately, this series of events coincided with her father's firm stance that his daughter would not become a Pokémon trainer, nor would she go on any sort of journey. She would remain in the sleepy town of Postwick, while others saw sights that were kept hidden, across the ocean and beyond the horizon.

Amber was not the type to give up so easily, however, and so she did what mischievous and sneaky little girls did best: she plotted and planned and schemed, even as her mother’s promised letters and postcards came and went. She thought of places she could go, if only she went far enough away. Her mother sent her pocket change when holidays came around, and she kept it safe in a box underneath her bed. It wasn’t much to start, but she understood basic math, and it had to start adding up sometime.

In the meantime, she read about the places across the ocean. She thought of places she’d like to go, looking at pictures of postcards, places that suddenly seemed far less unreachable than they had before. It wasn’t until she’d settled on a place - Johto, somewhere in Johto - that she finally told Hop about her plan to leave.

“But you’ll call, won’t you?” he’d asked her.

“I don’t know that I can,” she admitted. Then, when he started to frown, “But I’ll keep in touch! I promise!”

Finally, after months of waiting turned to years, Amber had put together enough money to leave - and on her eleventh birthday, no less. She woke before the dawn, slipping out her window as she’d done so many times before, traveling the dirt roads of Postwick right past Hop’s house. She didn’t linger there, instead moving onward to Wedgehurst. The future wouldn’t wait for her, after all, and she had a ship to catch.

The train was quiet at such an early hour, enough that she could hear the ticks and tocks of clocks and every whispered word. It seemed like the trip stretched on forever, but eventually the quiet ticks and tocks gave way to the sounds of any average day. There was nothing special about this particular train or this particular day, she supposed, to anyone that wasn’t her.

Eventually, after what felt like days but was almost certainly only hours, the train reached her stop. She couldn’t get to her feet or onto the platform fast enough, and after that she ran all the way to the harbor. It wasn’t too hard to find the right ship, and she held up her ticket to freedom - quite literally - as though it was a treasured family heirloom.

Later in the day, when she ship finally departed, she didn’t bother watching Galar fade into the distance. Instead, she was settling into her cabin and smiling brightly at the ceiling, because she was ready for her story to get started.

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter, as a prologue of sorts, covers a much larger span of time than any other chapter likely will. They'll all center around specific places, experiences or events; but I felt that this chapter was necessary as a prelude.


End file.
